Property

Ask anyone what 'property' means and they'll say a house, or things you own. That's fair - but it's the newer meaning, and the one we've half-forgotten is the more interesting. When 'property' first appears in English around 1300, it meant a quality: a distinctive character that belongs to something. We still talk that way about the properties of a metal, or the chemical properties of a substance - the qualities it has.

The 'things you own' sense came later and stayed rare until the 1600s. So the everyday meaning is the late arrival, not the original.

There's a cousin worth knowing: 'propriety', which came from the very same word by a slightly different road and now means correct behaviour. Two English words, one Latin parent - and a French relative, 'propre', that means 'clean'. The full chain is on the card.

Check out propre (French), propio (Spanish) and proprio (Italian).